Galaxy Smackdown and Overnight Thread (genghis)

Krakatoa put this up in the Top Headlines, but it really needs to be on the main page, as a Friday Night Main Event Card. I love the title of this article: “The Milky Way…Not Snack-Sized Anymore.”

Damn straight that is. Turns out we thought we was gettin’ bitch-slapped by the Andromeda Galaxy for eons. But not any longer:

”WASHINGTON – Take that, Andromeda! For decades, astronomers thought when it came to the major galaxies in Earth's cosmic neighborhood, our Milky Way was a weak sister to the larger Andromeda. Not anymore.”

“The Milky Way is considerably larger, bulkier and spinning faster than astronomers once thought, Andromeda's equal.”

“Scientists mapped the Milky Way in a more detailed, three-dimensional way and found that it's 15 percent larger in breadth. More important, it's denser, with 50 percent more mass, which is like weight. The new findings were presented Monday at the American Astronomical Society's convention in Long Beach, Calif”

Of course, the Milky Way still has yet to undergo it’s yearly galactical steroid tests. It’s not all punch and cookies, according to the “Albert Gore Jr. Institute of Making Shit up that Probably Won’t Ever Happen in Your Lifetime or Anyone Else’s, but…” The scientists do leave us with a dire warning of impending doom:

”Being bigger means the gravity between the Milky Way and Andromeda is stronger.”

“So the long-forecast collision between the neighboring galaxies is likely to happen sooner and less likely to be a glancing blow, Reid said.”